Don't worry. None of this blood is mine.

Recent (Night Lords Series) Questions

Just a quick update on my lunch break to answer some questions that winged their way to my eyes and ears recently, mostly regarding the Night Lords series. These are an amalgamation of jazz from various recent signings (Games Day, as well as Dublin and Belfast), my forum inboxes, my Facebook inbox, and junk from the forum spread that I can’t resist visiting.

Spoilers kept to a minimum – or at the very least, no stronger than those in ‘The Core’.

“Who are the new characters in Blood Reaver?”

Blood Reaver features a few new major and minor players in the series. These are (in no particular order): Lucoryphus of the Bleeding Eyes, Variel the Flayer, Nonus, and Hound. Some of those you’ll know from their teasers in ‘The Core’, others you’ll have to guess.

“Is Blood Reaver about Uzas, the way Soul Hunter was about Talos?”

Naw. Here’s the thing.

The Blood Reaver is one of the many titles used by Huron Blackheart, probably because his name is a bit silly and he’s shy about it. Blood Reaver (the novel, not the guy) still features Talos as the primary protagonist, but he’s slowly changing from his desperately lost passivity in Soul Hunter. This is where he starts to realise that just surviving might not be enough in the Long War. With everything degenerating around the crew of the Covenant of Blood, perhaps it’s time to fight back or just accept defeat. Even though he has no desire for leadership, others in the Legion look to him for guidance, and it’s much harder to claim “Guys, I’m not Malcharion’s heir, honestly” when he’s actually carrying the war-sage’s bolter.

Time to nut up or shut up, you know?

Beyond that, the others in First Claw do show up a little more. Uzas, Xarl, Cyrion and Mercutian get a lot more screen time, as does Variel (obviously, because in Blood Reaver we see how he joins First Claw in the first place).

“I read on Forum X that one of First Claw dies in Blood Reaver.”

No, cupcake. You read that in one of the middle chapters, I accidentally killed one of them while indulging in a side-plot, and subsequently rewrote the entire chapter because it was stupid and irrelevant. (You’re starting to see why this novel is late, right?) I’d never give a spoiler that a character actually died – that would be ball-achingly lame.

That said, it’s war. Soldiers die in war. That’s what makes it a war, and not a particularly immersive game of Lazer Tag.

“What is the Exalted? A Daemon Prince? A Possessed? A Chaos Lord close to Spawnhood?”

This gets explored a little more in Blood Reaver, actually.

Seriously, as much as I cleave to the background as described in the codices, you’ve got to realise that the game’s rules don’t always represent the lore all that well. Chaos doesn’t just touch people and say “You’re X, you’re Y, you’re Z.” It’s Chaos. It’s chaotic. Chaos would infuse its victi– uh, its followers with whatever the hell it wanted. Most Chaos Gifts wouldn’t fit neatly into the army lists in the back of a codex, like.

That said, I can shed some light on this. Vandred (the VIII Legion 10th Captain) is a lesser consciousness in the creature that is now The Exalted. Cyrion knows this – he comments on it in Soul Hunter. So the Exalted is something like a Daemon Prince in that he’s been, uh, promoted like they have. But with his ascension came possession, like one of the weaker “battlefield” Possessed. In short, he’s either a Daemon Prince that doesn’t fight the way most others do, or he’s a really, really powerful Possessed. Both are true. Or neither. I don’t care, leave me alone.

“Why do you always say ‘Astartes’ in your novels?”

Because I hate the way “Space Marines” sounds.

They’re post-humans. They’re technically a different subspecies, vaguely similar to the way a mule is different from a horse or a donkey, but has bits of both. They’re Homo Astartes (stop laughing, you at the back), not Homo Sapiens.

“Why does Talos dream about the Eldar? / Will the Eldar prophecies feature in the third novel?”

Okay.

I’ve been open and up front since the beginning on this one. The trilogy has a very distinct focus, split by both physical and the mental considerations. Mentally, the storyline is about facing up to responsibility in the face of temptation, vengeance, corruption, loneliness – or some combination of all four. All of the characters face that to some degree; it’s intrinsic to the whole deal. But physically, the narrative is about getting back to the Eye of Terror alive, albeit in a roundabout way, after the Legion wears out its welcome in Imperial space.

The third novel, probably called Void Stalker, is about the final stretch on the road home. At the end of Soul Hunter (and throughout Blood Reaver) Talos suffers increasingly violent premonitions about the Eldar. If you’d not already guessed they’d be fighting the Eldar at some point, then frankly, I suck at my job. But whatever.

The Night Lords have their sanctuary in sight by the end of the series. But what orbits the Eye of Terror? What colossal, half-ruined remnant of a fallen empire might just be in the way of them reaching home?

Exactly. Craftworld Ulthwe.

“If Talos is the Soul Hunter, Huron is the Blood Reaver, who’s the Void Stalker?”

Your mum.

I’m not telling you, stop asking. Just wait a year and a half.

“Why do the Night Lords eat other Astartes’ gene-seed?”

For a few reasons, and none of them are nice.

Firstly, it’s the threat of cannibalistic desecration. When you’re fighting other Astartes (an enemy that can’t feel fear) the best you can do is let them know that if they lose, you’re going to do some absolutely horrible things to their dead bodies. It might buy you a second’s distraction.

Secondly, it’s not an idle threat. It’s a vicious way of ensuring that your enemy knows his death will never serve his Chapter. Think about it this way: Astartes aren’t just warriors, they’re also incubators for progenoid glands – they carry the “seed” necessary to make the next generation, just in a sterile and sexless way compared to humans. By threatening to eat to eat an Astartes’ progenoid organs, you’re removing a massive piece of his legacy in the Chapter, as well as harming the Chapter’s future. You don’t just kill the warrior, you deny the creation of any others that would’ve followed in an unbroken genetic line.

Thirdly, Talos was an Apothecary. When he makes the threat, it’s something that shows the absolute depths of his hatred for the Imperium – and, by that virtue, everything that he once was.

Regarding the ‘creation of a space marine’ article, maybe you should explain in a future book just how it is that an Astartes can breathe despite “the rib cage [being] fused into a solid mass of bulletproof, interlocking plates”. Something that’s always puzzled me.

I agree on the ‘Space Marines’ thing.
It seems pretty homo. (no pun intended)
I think only children of the 41st would grow up saying ‘Space Marines’.
For example as I grew up I stopped saying ‘Army Men’ and just started to say ‘Soldiers’ instead.

The keywords in what you quoted are “interlocking plates”. It *could* imply that the plates overlap one and another, allowing the chest to expand and contract during breathing. That’s how I understand it, at least.

Hell, Astartes lungs could be modified with a pump that allows circulation that works in tandem with the third lung.

I like how you’ve included other Night Lord forces and recognition of their differences and structures in your work. In The Core, Throne of Lies and Soul Hunter the Night Lords had forces in conflict from small numbers, to many thousands of Astartes and hundreds of battle tanks. It’s a nice bonus that sets up the dire circumstances of the tenth in relation to how the legion itself is faring. Although split and fractured, there is more left than just the shitty circumstances of a handful of companies.

Including Dreadnought, princeps, war gear, navigator, and other astartes into the tenths snare really motivates and inspires me. Prior to reading about a former Corsair included in a NL claw I would have thought the idea to be ridiculed and impossible to work into an army. Prior to The Core i had planned squads to be entirely one faction. Now i’m playing around with other war-band Astartes being included. It supports the theme of renegades and chaos wonderfully and adds awesome dynamics. Hell Mercutian being of noble origin strikes a chord deep within me that i don’t find in anyone Else’s work.

I’m wondering what your thoughts are on keeping the 10th true to their original theme, or if their exploits may begin to mirror their success with fans. You’ve certainly reinvented what it means to be a Night Lord player.

I always write really long responses to your blog that I end up deleting and condensing.

1) I always thought the Exalted was a daemon prince, especially so after seeing how it’s about half way between Fulgrim and Argel Tal. I was working on the assumption that daemon princes are “possessed” by their own daemonic souls.

2) Eye of Terror and environs in Soul Hunter, Maelstrom in Blood Reaver and back to the Eye in Void Stalker. Have I got that right? If so, never mind Ulthwe, they’ll have to pass Terra and the Segmentum Solar, twice. Unless their taking a hell of a round trip.

3) “Astartes” = Stars. Makes them sound a bit twinkly to me, but then what they actually speak probably sounds nothing like English (or pig Latin) and it has 10,000 years of different connotations to it, anyway.

After making me actually like the Word Bearers with The First Heretic I really think you should do a novel on the Iron Warriors or the World Eaters. Both of those chaos legions seem pretty straight forward but I feel like you could give them a lot of hidden depth.

That was definitely me and I was glad to write it. You really earned it. It’s not often you read a book and become attatched to a legion and a primarch you cared nothing about previously. Can’t wait for the next one!

I don’t know wether to take that last comment as Night Lords craving human flesh (likely) or Night Lords doing it to gain strategic advantage (Also a likely reason for them to do it.), so I’m going to go with both. Shits AND giggles as it were.

I always saw the Exhalted as being at the crossroads from either becomeing a Prince or Spawn.
I was curious to as if you wrote the Heresy Night Lords novel where would it focus?
The attrocity that makes the Fists so squemish and calls for thier censure,The dropsite massacare,how Nostromo was feeding the legion criminals?
Basically do you think you’ll focus on the earlier days or after when the Assassins are hunting him?

Damn I have to stop reading the comments as Im reading spoilers. XD I must ask, which novels does the Night Lords featuring their presence? In particularly 10th company as Ive heard there are some cross-overs. =O

Passive breathing, sure. But active breathing, the kind you might do while vigorously purging some heretics, I reckon you’d want actual ribs for that. Meh, who knows. No doubt their superlungs are ‘special’. 🙂

hhhhhhhhhhhmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm geneseed (drools like a escaped lunatic) i wonder if it tastes like chicken 🙂 any ways really looking forward to blood reaver to see if huron and talos can get along unlike abbaddon who was an asshole

I just wanted to briefly say that you are my favorite Black Library author and I love that you tell the tales of the Chaos Marines, excuse me, Astartes, that not a lot of other authors seem to want to. I mean to me the most interesting characters in a universe full of interesting characters are the ‘Traitors’. Anyway, thanks for writing so very well and I hope you continue to do so for many years to come. Thanks

Who? Why?

My name’s Aaron W Dembski-Bowden.

Don’t ask about the W – let’s just forget it exists and forgive my parents for a bizarre choice of middle name. Y’know, I used to tell people it stood for Wolfgang, but no one ever believed me. I’m not a skilled liar.

I write a lot, and people pay me to do it. I argue a lot, but I do that for free. If you want to start paying me to argue, please apply within. My rates would be generous, and my cynical wrath without peer.

I have a cat, but I prefer dogs. Most of my clothes are black, but my favourite colour is orange. I was born in a really dark, grim patch of London, but I moved to the greenest parts of Northern Ireland. This last factoid arises from being in love with a beautiful Irish girl who foolishly agreed to marry me – and that it’s easier to write out here in the middle of nowhere with only fields, cats, and hot redheads for company.